Growing Up Geek
Technology and geekdom kind of rolled up on me initially. I was in a college journalism program and year one, we were hacking away at typewriters. I even remember my professor hitting me on the knuckles with a ruler and how mortified I was. The next year, the personal computers were in and the typewriters out. There was no discussion of what had just happened. I am not even sure the journalism program realized what a watershed moment had occurred. My eyes opened up to these changes being world-altering once I read The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. His first chapter is titled, "While I was Sleeping". After I read the first 50 pages, I was very much awake to the fact that technology had become much more than an efficient way to get things done. I was mesmerized. Impressed. Wanted to be along for the ride. Forever.
The first major high I got off of being around technology was during my orientation at Circuit City to be a holiday sales clerk. Remember Circuit City? As they walked us through the warehouse, I was openly gaping at all the latest tech stuff because it was all IN ONE PLACE. My face started to hurt. I had the biggest smile EVER on my adult face. Really ever even going forward. I wanted to own the stuff I was learning thru e-classes and on the sales floor. Selling something is kind of like owning it. You gotta own those specs in a way that makes the customer want to own it. I took great pleasure in seeing my name listed in the top three sales slots when I worked.
Working retail technology sales made me part teenager again. Ironically, at the time I was going back to school to become a high school teacher. One night, after closing, they had a video gaming marathon. I met Guitar Hero that night. Wii bowling. And more importantly, that intangible something that comes from being around a whole building full of geekdoms. Bought my first quad core computer that year. Next to nobody actually owned quad cores yet. A young guy said I didn't need one. Jealous.
And so it has been since -- knowing how to set up the most complex audio visual receiver and getting it to do what it is supposed to do. Trouble shooting for others doing the same. Simplifying and getting the latest sound bar. Hosting within hours of my first HD television being set up. Networking as part crazy making. Impressed when Windows 8 simplified the whole thing. Letting my teenager surpass me without even trying. Getting her an Apple Computer. Feeling really dumb when I cannot use it. Raised on Microsoft in every workplace.
Getting handed a most amazing class to teach. Culture and Mass Media. Permission to stay on top of what is happening. To connect the evolution in social media to the attitudes and interests of teenagers. Referencing things in class, like calling time and temperature and getting all blank stares. Thinking about why we used to need to call time and termperature and why we don't need to do that anymore. GPS and cell phones have us all synced in real time. But we are more late than ever. Go figure.
